pharyngula

So I passed on rending Steve Cornell's inane piece on atheists, but it's a big ol' blogosphere, and you knew someone would step in to fill the gap. Two people did. Amanda's always game, and here's someone new: the Southern Fried Skeptic gives it a twist and tells us it's not easy being a Christian…

Clearly, Bush is not going to drift quietly into oblivion. Majikthise and Feministing report that his administration is appointing a certifiable kook to run the federal program that oversees family planning and reproductive health. His qualifications seem to be that he's fanatical about abstinence…

Rob Helpy-Chalk has a horrific video of a student being repeatedly shocked with a taser…for not exiting a UCLA library quickly enough. If you'd rather not listen to a hand-cuffed young man screaming in pain, you could just read the story. There are a few campus police officers who need to be sacked…

Zeno sent me this link to an article by Jon Carroll—Carroll is one of those "eh, so what" members of the godless community, who probably rolls his eyes at those uppity atheists who get so obnoxious about the role of religion in our culture, while at the same time recognizing that there are some…

I'm not nominated for anything, praise Jebus.

This story about the wingnut history teacher, David Paszkiewicz, just gets more and more amusing and sad. Lippard has comments from students defending the guy, and while I know that a lot of high school students are immature, these are damning. Kearny High School officials ought to be very…

This week's issue of Nature contains a bizarre letter from a Polish creationist, forester, and member of the Polish parliament. His credentials notwithstanding, it is a very silly diatribe that makes a series of false claims—claims that are trivial to dismiss, but in that fine tradition of the Gish…

Chopra. Deepak Chopra is a fraud who probably makes at least ten times my salary, who gets invited onto talk shows and news programs to spout his opinions, whose books are read by millions as if they actually provide any insight…and the guy has the brains of a turnip. It's just sad. Have you no…

I see that Phil and I are going to be in competition: we've both been nominated in the new Best Science Blog category of the Weblog Awards. This is one of those awards I don't quite get: apparently, the organizers will just choose a subset of the nominated blogs in some way or another, and I seem…

When asked what her aspirations for her new term in congress might be, Michele Bachmann's answer was: "My No. 1 goal is to not go to jail," Bachmann said, chuckling. I think that's nice. Set impossible standards for yourself, Michele, so that when you fail, you can at least say you tried.

Remember that fundie history teacher who was caught on tape? One of the recordings is now online. I haven't listened to the whole thing—the quality is terrible, and it's a typical high school classroom that is in a noisy uproar—but you do hear him nattering on about Satan and the Bible and sin and…

Well, if they can have Mother Teresa in a bun, or Jesus in a tortilla, we can have an image of Charles Darwin in a tree. I fear it might be a case of mistaken identity, though—it looks more like Karl Marx to me.

John G. West of the Discovery Institute wants all you conservatives to know that the Debate Over Evolution Not Going Away, and that you need to join up with his side and question "Darwinism", because of all those intolerant nasty dogmatists who want to suppress the truth. You know, people like me.…

Japanese researchers prepare the first enlistee in the robot cephalopod legion. If we could only bring together robot cuttlefish and zombie cyborg squid, we could rule the world! Prepare to be subjugated, flimsy, limb-deficient hu-mans.

A lot of people don't know what atheists are, but they're sure certain about defining them, and somehow, we're always so BAD. Ophelia finds a doozy of a redefinition of atheism, but I can top it: Steve Cornell, a pastor at Millersville Bible Church, makes a long list of the sins of the atheist. In…

Ian Musgrave has just posted an excellent article on the poor design of the vertebrate eye compared to the cephalopod eye; it's very thorough, and explains how the clumsy organization of the eye clearly indicates that it is the product of an evolutionary process rather than of any kind of…

Make some popcorn. Jason Rosenhouse says agnosticism is unjustified fence-sitting. John Wilkins says he's still an agnostic. Larry Moran is egging them on. Isn't this fun? Let's see if I can get them all pissed off at me. The agnostic/atheist conflict has been simmering for a long, long time so it'…

For a little context, you need to know that we had a foreign exchange student from Italy living with us for a year. If you've been reading this blog for long, you may also know that I have somewhat strong feelings about religion—OK, I'm one of those surly evil atheists your momma warned you to…

Religious ritual can make you very, very sick, and even kill you. This somewhat morbid, mildly gross, and terribly sad story about the Essenes, the religious zealots who authored the Dead Sea scrolls, is an interesting anthropological look at an ancient failed cult. It seems that their requirements…

Uh, guys? You know that trip to Ken Ham's creation science "museum"? I think he got wind of our plans. He's training guard dogs now.

This could be a lively free-for-all: we've got one commenter who was visited by Steve Irwin's ghost, another who believes in astral projection, and now Deepak Chopra claims to have 'proof' of an afterlife. I think that, by the mystic Rule of Threes, that requires that I respond, so let's take a…

My students in Developmental Biology 4181 have been blogging away all term, and here are a few of the topics they're thinking about this week. Sea urchins Smooth muscle cells Lung cancer vaccines Tests are good for you (good news, since I'm giving them one right now) Opiate boosters…

Unless you're one of those god-crazed fundagelical thugs, you ought to be willing to support your first amendment rights and agree that religion does not belong in government. Sign the petition! It's the very least you can do. Now if only they hadn't used the phrase "Sound Science" to describe…

I'm falling behind on the carnival circuit! Here are some I should have noted the other day. Carnival of the Godless #53 Friday Ark #112 The Synapse #11

No, no…it's cephalopodmas madness. Only 38 days to go!

Cody visited the creation science "museum" near Glenrose, Texas, and came back with a photo of the mural portraying Adam and Eve. Adam looks…familiar. I knew he was old, but that old? I'm not sure who Eve resembles. Anita Bryant? Skeletor?

This fairly typical scrap of creationist email made me smirk. Please, if you're going to be sarcastic and tell me how stupid I am, don't make the first word of your diatribe grammatically incorrect. your soo smart... I wish I was as smart as you Oh you are soo much smarter than everyone else. That…

Oh happy day, the Sea Urchin Genome Project has reached fruition with the publication of the full sequence in last week's issue of Science. This news has been all over the web, I know, so I'm late in getting my two cents in, but hey, I had a busy weekend, and and I had to spend a fair amount of…

It's a sign of the lowly state to which the DI is descending that their assaults on evolutionary ideas have lately been led by the pathetic Casey Luskin. Luskin is a guy who doesn't understand biology, and whose usual line of attack is to whine about credentials—it isn't a good combination. After…

Mark your calendars—Cephalopodmas is on the 22nd day of December, and you need to start rehearsing those Cephalopodmas carols. I have to say, though, that the continuing neglect of this important holiday by the media is another sign of the War on Cephalopodmas. Don't believe me? Walk into your…